Lancashire-based Eric Wright Group‘s parent company Henmead has posted its Henmead financial results 2025, recording pre-tax profit up 29 per cent to £14.4m on turnover of £298.5m for the 12 months to 31 December 2025.
Turnover grew 2.3 per cent from £291.7m the prior year, while pre-tax profit advanced from £11.2m, reflecting margin improvement across several of the group’s divisions. Henmead held £12.9m of cash at the year end, up from £12.1m 12 months earlier. No dividends were paid in either of the past two years.
Construction and civil engineering drive the Henmead financial results 2025
The group’s construction division recorded income of £88.1m, up from £77.6m in 2024, with pre-tax profit growing from £2.5m to £3.5m. Separately, IN Site reports that Eric Wright Construction recorded a £3.5m pre-tax profit on turnover of £100.7m for 2025, with profit increasing despite revenue falling from £105.3m the previous year.
The margin story behind that construction performance is telling in its own terms. Insider Media reports that gross profit rose to £27.3m, representing a margin of 9.2 per cent, compared with £24.4m and 8.4 per cent in 2024. That kind of margin progression, achieved while absolute turnover contracted, points to a tighter grip on cost management and project selectivity rather than volume growth alone.
The civil engineering unit delivered a 40 per cent increase in turnover to £34.8m, with pre-tax profit doubling to £0.4m. The breadth of that performance across both building and infrastructure disciplines underlines the diversified platform that Chairman Richard Wright cited as central to the group’s resilience.
Headcount and employment costs reflect a growing operation
Henmead’s average headcount grew from 939 in 2024 to 1,015 in 2025, with employment costs increasing by 15 per cent to £55.7m. The increase in workforce costs is proportionally larger than the revenue uplift, a pattern common across the sector as competition for skilled trades and professional staff has intensified throughout the current construction cycle.
Chairman Richard Wright said Henmead ‘continues to demonstrate improvement in its overall business performance’, describing this as ‘driven by a combination of strategic initiatives, operational efficiencies and market responsiveness’. He added that ‘the diversity of the group’s activities remains a fundamental strength, providing a stable platform for sustainable returns, even in more challenging market conditions.’
Wright characterised the construction division’s performance as ‘strong’ and said it was ‘well positioned to generate sustainable, recurring profits’. He acknowledged that preconstruction timelines remain difficult to manage, noting that ‘preconstruction gestation periods remain long and difficult to predict, exacerbated by the stringent requirements of the Building Safety Act on large-scale residential schemes.’ He said the business had nonetheless ‘secured and progressed a number of projects during the year and entered into several preconstruction services agreements, reflecting the value of early engagement and collaboration.’
The reference to the Building Safety Act is a concrete reminder of the regulatory overhead now embedded in any large residential scheme. Extended gateway approval periods under the Act add time and cost to programmes before a spade enters the ground, compressing the pipeline visibility that contractors depend on for forward planning. That Henmead’s construction arm has continued to grow margin through this environment, reaching 9.2 per cent gross profit, suggests its preconstruction and risk disciplines are absorbing rather than amplifying those pressures.
The group was ranked 79th in the 2025 CN100. Wright said Henmead had ‘strong grounds for confidence’ as it entered 2026, pointing to ‘a strong contracting pipeline and development activity increasingly coming to fruition’ and the ‘continued application of well-established risk-management disciplines’ to deliver ‘trading stability and enhanced financial returns.’
